


Tomorrow Happens Tomorrow

by ba_lailah



Category: Original Work
Genre: Autumn, Communication, Dawn - Freeform, Gen, Global Warming, Orange, Sasquatch, sunrise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 05:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21156647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_lailah/pseuds/ba_lailah
Summary: The weather's wrong, but the sun doesn't lie. It's time to go south.





	Tomorrow Happens Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetcarolanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/gifts).

Spruce knows it's time to go south. The sun is at a certain angle through the trees. The nights are a little longer. The acorns are falling; they taste dense and sweet as they turn to mash between her broad teeth.

The weather has not been behaving properly. The mushrooms sprouted early in the unseasonable warm rain that brought down green-leafed branches all through the wood, so mushroom time didn't mean south-going time the way it usually does. On a clear day like today, the breeze should be crisp and dry, but it's still warm and humid, and that's wrong, it feels wrong when it blows on her skin and her fur. She hesitates for a day, then two days. But the sun and the night are certain, more certain than the weather.

"We will go south today," she signs to Nightshade as they nestle in their summer burrow. The early morning light is dim, but there's enough to see each other's hands.

"We should already have been going," Nightshade signs back grumpily.

"The wind was wrong."

"You would wait two handfuls of seasons for a wind that fulfills you." 

Nightshade is always in a bad mood when she first wakes up. Spruce should have waited until they'd had breakfast.

Spruce crawls out of the burrow. She and Nightshade have not been too greedy with the mushroom patch on top of their burrow; with abundant rain and careful harvesting, its bounty has sustained them for a full moon cycle. There's one big mushroom left. She breaks the meaty brown cap in half and gives Nightshade the half with the stem as a peace offering. Nightshade grumbles around the first few mouthfuls but quiets, contented, as her hunger is appeased.

There's little left in the cache—two handfuls of acorns, some dried grasshoppers—and they decide to eat it all now to fuel themselves for the first day of travel. They'll forage on the way. There's a shadowed grove Spruce remembers from their migration north: it had a couple of nurse trees rotting away, and by now they might have a good crop of mushrooms. Nightshade is in a better mood now and agrees to try to find the grove again. It's not really out of their way, and if they don't find it or there aren't any mushrooms, they'll figure out something else. 

They leave the burrow for the last time. It's been a good burrow for them, spacious and not too damp. Nightshade starts to cover the entrance with leaves and twigs, but Spruce stops her. "Good for a bear overwinter," she signs. "Cozy." So they leave it for the local bears, or whoever decides to make use of it, and turn south.

The breeze still feels wrong. Spruce scents rain coming, maybe two or three days of it, and it worries her. They don't always have good weather for migration, but more often than not, the sky is clear and blue behind the orange leaves.

"Your face looks sour," Nightshade signs.

"The air smells of rain. It will slow us down." One year it rained for the entire walk south, soaking their fur and rotting the berries on the bushes. The leaves were slippery underfoot. Whenever the rain stopped, clouds of inedible little insects plagued them, invading their noses and biting the exposed skin on their faces and hands. Spruce does not wish to repeat this experience.

"You gnaw on tomorrow too much," Nightshade signs. She tells Spruce this about once a day. It's always true.

"I do," Spruce signs ruefully.

"Today, blue sky. Today, full stomachs. Tomorrow happens tomorrow."

They have made this trip a handful and one times now, south and north. They have been rained on many times, and the sun has always come back and dried and warmed them. They are resourceful and capable.

"Tomorrow happens tomorrow," Spruce agrees. 

The sun is just rising in the blue sky, glinting on the orange leaves. They turn south and begin to walk.


End file.
